Electronic junkyard opens in Milford

Makayla Silva

Published 11:17 pm, Thursday, July 25, 2013

Will Macca of Milford offers individuals and corporations a way to recycle unwanted electronics at his company, FEW.R Corp. at 164 Old Gate Lane in Milford on Wednesday, May 8, 2013.
Photo: Brian A. Pounds

MILFORD -- FEW.R, an electronic waste recycling center, recently opened in Milford, offering a free and safe drop-off for nonworking or outdated electronics.

Anything from old PCs, laptops, cellphones, LCD monitors, telephones to cables and chords can be dropped off at the main warehouse located at 164 Old Gate Lane.

"Anything that has a plug or a battery, you can bring to us," owner Will Macca said.

As a drop-off reclamation center, FEW.R recycles devices and finds streams of buyers who will sell the up sourced materials in their elemental forms.

Macca said 100 percent of the inners of a computer or laptop can be recycled down to the individual high technology and precious metals.

"Computers are like the human body. Everything can serve another purpose," he said.

FEW.R's goal is to streamline how electronic waste is approached and build a positive feeling surrounding the way products are recycled and processed throughout the country, according to Macca.

"It's an issue when these devices end up in a landfill and these chemicals seep into our land and waters," he said.

While working as an in-flight coordinator for an aerospace company, Macca traveled to 140 countries, including China and Ghana.

He said he saw one of the largest e-waste sites on the planet in, comparably the size of Hartford, in Ghana.

"Children were burning the insulation off copper wire so they would have a handful of copper to bring to the refiner to get money to buy food at the market, which was down the street from the e-waste site," he said. "Plumes of smoke from the burning plastic traveled up the road to the market and covered the food being sold there."

He said babies were being born disfigured, often lacking organs or ligaments.

FEW.R will not send any electronic waste products outside of the United States for processing, Macca said.

"I refuse to work with any companies who ship outside of the United States. But it can get tricky because the U.S. loosens the rules for short periods of time for different companies to ship e-waste out of the country," he said.

He said the goal of FEW.R is to provide the up-cycled material back to the consumer as a 100 percent recycled U.S. product.

"We know there is sustainability through up-sourcing," Macca said. "It's invention through innovation."

FEW.R is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.